(c) 1997 Wide Smiles
This Document is from WideSmiles Website - www.widesmiles.org
Reprint in whole or in part, with out written permission from Wide Smiles
is prohibited. Email: widesmiles@aol.com

Ten years ago tomorrow, in a small town outside Seoul, Korea, a little boy child was
born. He was tiny, weighing only four pounds. Vulnerable. Facially disfigured. And
the woman who gave birth to him walked out to the clinic alone two days later. Tiny,
vulnerable, facially disfigured and alone, this teeny handful of human would someday
touch the world.

At that same time, on the other side of the planet, I was
dealing with challenges of my own. I could not achieve that one thing that so many
found so natural. I wanted to become a mother, and I actively failed to reach
that goal for sixteen long, frustrating, heartbreaking years. And then that
particular little boy was born. And with one phone call - one answer - my frustration
was over, and that baby was no longer alone. That baby became my son, and I named my
son Jacob.

Seventy-two days later I waited at the Los Angeles
International Airport for my baby to meet me on the American side of customs. And I
realized that after so many years, so much frustration, so many tears, so much
heartache, I was waiting for the last time. I had sent a blanket into customs with an
escort. I wanted to know which of the five babies was mine right away (like I would
not have recognized the only one with a cleft!!!) I saw the blanket first, and then I
saw the bundle. And in the arms of the escort, all at once, I saw my son. She stopped
and posed with him for a few moments, until I realized that I could be HOLDING my
child. I shoved my camera at another escort and quickly ran to the end of the ramp
coming out of customs.

The escort met me at the top of the ramp. She placed my son
into my arms. I cradled him and pulled the blanket from his face. Three months old.
Barely nine pounds. He looked right up and me, and he smiled. It was the widest, most
beautiful smile I had ever seen. And I was hooked.

I like to believe that that beautiful Wide Smile passed that
day from my son's face, to mine, and then, eventually, out to all of you. I did not
know what a cleft was about before I said yes to Jacob. But I knew what a baby was
about, and I knew I wanted one. Whatever the cleft was, we would deal with that
together. And we have.

And as I built my own knowledge base and experience for the
sake of my son, I offered what I had learned to other familes adopting cleft-affected
babies. Another son, more experiences, and a more intricately woven network, I found
myself involved with more families than I could juggle. Until one day one mom
suggested that instead of dealing with each family individually, I start a
publication. And Wide Smiles was born. And then Jessica joined my family. By then I
had long since learned that a cleft was not enough to make me say no to any child.

Wide Smiles quickly grew to a distribution spanning all 50
States and many other countries. And yet we were still not reaching families as
quickly as we would have liked. We got the idea to develop an internet presence
initially from one of the moms I was writing to. And then from a listserve that I
joined. Cleft-talk was born, and we met Andrea and then David, and Kat and all of you
who have had a hand in the development of this resource.

Thanks to Andrea, the Autoresponders went up and the website
became a reality. Thanks to David the gallery was developed. Thanks to all of you,
the network works. We have come so very far.

And yet, it started ten years ago tomorrow, when a tiny,
vulernable child with a cleft lay alone and helpless in a clinic, in a small town
just outside of Seoul, Korea.